Moments
by PseudonymousEntity
Summary: Tom leaned over and stage whispered, "I think she's on to us." Collection of one shots depicting the dreams haunting Harry before the start of Alchema: Child of Fate. Includes hiding in closets, dabbling in forbidden arts, creating an alias and murder attempts. Ah, sweet dreams...
1. Awkward conversations and caffeine

**AN:** Here ya go!

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**Awkward**** conversations and caffeine addictions**

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Hadrian opened his eyes to cold blue one not five inches from him. He jumped.

An annoyingly familiar snicker followed after.

"Tom?"

The face pulled back allowing him to see it more clearly. Yup it was Tom.

The irritating, apartment breaking into teenage dark lord raised an eyebrow.

"Just how many people do you have around here? This is my first visit- should I be jealous?"

His voice was light but Harry could see the glint in his eyes. In response he rolled his own, green ones. Standing he pushed his intruder out of his bedroom and into the living room.

"I haven't even had coffee yet. This is indecent I tell you!"

Tom snorted. "Drama queen."

A knock sounded at apartment door. Harry scowled. So much for a stress free summer. Only two weeks into the break before fifth year and he was being accosted. Joy.

Hadrian opened the door and immediately regretted it.

His bushy haired friend entered obliviously, already rambling about something or other. Finally she caught sight of his visitor.

"Oh! Harry quickly!"

And he was being pulled along and shoved into a small space and darkness.

He sighed. It, really, was much too early for this.

"What are you doing?"

"Hiding you."

Hadrian regarded his friend skeptically.

"In the closet?"

"I retreated to think of our options and strategize our escape."

"...in the closet?"

Hermione smacked his head and attempted to shush him.

Tom decided to enter the conversation.

"Is it alright if I procure a snack from the fridge as you are...otherwise occupied? I'm getting bored. I eat when I'm bored. Nasty habit."

Hermione looked nonplussed. She turned to him.

"What is he doing here?"

"Going through my fridge."

"Yes but why?"

"He's bored. Just said so in fact. Are you not paying attention at all? Some strategist you are."

She huffed, rearranging herself into a more comfortable position. That in it's self a feat, this was a small cloak closet.

"Why is he here Hadrian?" Her voice taking on that holier-than-thou 'why are you so stupid' tone that he loathed.

"I have no idea. You decided to take a detour to Narnia before he could say."

Tom's voice filtered in, he seemed to be near the closet door now.

"I've forgotten now. But I am sure I can come up with something to talk about. You have no food in here. What are you living on? Air?"

"You don't like to cook Tom."

"Last I checked neither do you, yet here lies the refrigerator and seasoning rack."

"It came with the apartment."

"Which is also horridly mundane. Really you could have come to the estate. This is dreadful. If Barty and Lucius knew..."

"Dammit Riddle if you tell them I'll gut you myself!"

"Ooh death threats. Makes the fifth one today."

Hermione stared at Hadrian.

"What?"

"You've threatened him five times today? How long as he BEEN here?"

"Only half an hour. And no. More than likely it is five separate death threats from other people, who are now more than likely- dead."

"It is." Called Tom helpfully.

"Ah, thanks for clarifying."

"How are you taking this so easily?" She demanded, looking thoroughly exasperated with his lack of self preservation.

"How do you mean?"

"Tom Riddle. Dark Lord. Is in your kitchen."

"Is she always this slow?" Came a scathing comment.

His knees were aching, he felt claustrophobic and for the love of magic he wanted his dam,n coffee. "This is ridiculous I'm leaving the closet." He stood, thrust it open and walked out.

Tom grinned and looked him up and down suggestively. "About time too."

He felt his cheeks flush. "Jeezus Tom stop saying shit like that. This is why the Lestranges think we're...er...involved. Those rumors will never stop if you keep doing stuff like-" He trailed off.

Both boys stiffened and looked to the right. The forgotten bushy haired muggleborn stood there, mouth open.

"Oh my God. You two are friends!"

Tom leaned over and stage whispered, "I think she's on to us."

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**AN:** _Are you guys enjoying these? Any suggestions? Let me know if I'm awesome or sucky. It's good to know these things._


	2. Plots, Potions, Promises

A lissome boy with inky hair stooped over a bubbling cauldron in an abandoned classroom. Pale yellow light reflected on his face, showing lips pulled between white teeth absently. Emerald orbs rimmed with thick dark lashes shined with curiosity and determination. His attention flickered between the heating liquid and a set of notes on the desk beside him.

From the outside looking in one might see an avid potions researcher seeking a place to work without disturbance. One might see a student working diligently to better their-self at a subject in which they perform less than adequately. One might see a prankster readying a potion of their own invention to reek havoc on these hallowed halls. What one might not see, after casually glancing in, is that something life altering was progress.

No turning back now.

Harry Potter was going to change the world. Right now. In this moment. And then they would see.

Dumbledore with his ever twinkling eyes and subtle manipulations. Hermione, whom he hoped choked on her self-serving ideals. Ron and Draco, both of whom teased him for his girly face and his moniker (the-boy-who-live and more recently Slytherin's heir) respectively.

He was tired of everyone walking on eggshells around him. Speaking down to him in soft condescending tones, soothing his worries with pats on the head and promises of more information when he was ready. Of the small, humoring smiles when he requested passes to the restricted section or asked questions above his year. Apparently he was only the Savior of the Wizarding World when it suited them and at all other times he was a naive child who oughtn't know anything about the reality of the situation.

Well, no more. No more being underestimated. No more being ignored. Being used.

Harry spooned a small amount of potion into a vial and grinned wickedly. If he succeeded, they'd acknowledge him then. They'd see him then. He would be famous for his own merits and no one would dare mock him. Not for his looks or his short stature or his parentage. They would see him now. The real Harry.

He turned and stepped into a circle drawn on the stone floor with ashes and salt. Harry took a calming breath, brought the vial to his lips and tipped it just enough to taste. A series of thundering, rolling booms startled him. It took a great deal of self-control not to jump out of the circle as the world around him shimmered, blurred and swirled around him. Then, just as suddenly as it began, it stopped. Harry immediately toppled over. Not quite the entrance he'd imagined.

"You're here..." a low voice whispered.

Rubbing the back of his head, face flushed with embarrassment, Harry sat up. To his left, across a large, wet hall stood the key to his success. The Yin to his Yang. His equal.

"Riddle." He greeted, saluting cheerily.

Harry stood and wiped the grime off his dark tunic and slacks. A grimace flickered across his face. Yuck.

"You're here." Riddle, eyes glimmering, calculating, observing, said again.

"Apparently."

"In my diary."

"Yes."

Tom took a single step forward and paused. "With me."

Harry grinned. "With you."

Tom Riddle shoved his hands into his pockets and strolled across the chamber. Harry began backing up, a tiny measure of alarm prodding at him in the back of his mind. Tom stopped a breath away, his left hand brushing the fringe from his forehead. Long fingers skittered across his face. Blue eyes met green and Harry felt his breath hitch, a shudder of apprehension flowing through him. He believed it was warranted, sixteen or not this was still Voldemort.

"Harry?"

"Yes. It's me Tom."

Riddle brushed fingers through Harry's hair and down his neck feeling his pulse point and back to his face.

"You managed to retrieve me from the girl. She stole me from his office you know. Dumbledore's. I don't remember how I got there Harry. Are you the reason why? "

"Yes. You've been asleep for a while now. I'm in my fourth year."

The hand cupped his cheek, slid along his jaw and allowed a pale finger to trace his lips.

"Why are you here Harry?"

Harry swallowed and ordered himself to breathe.

"They..." he trailed off searching for the proper words, "they think they know me. And using the information they have supplied, they dare to choose my future for me. The dare to judge me worth, my potential. The treat me like a shiny weapon one day and a naive child the next." He paused.

Riddle waited patiently, a peculiar, possessive gleam forming in his eyes.

"But they don't know me. None of them. They don't even try." as if in answer to his raging and confusing emotions, the pools of water rippled, the lights flickered and cracks spidered along the stones. Resentment and jealousy and bitterness and a mess of other emotions he'd never allowed himself to acknowledge radiated off him in a stormy aura. Years of frustration released from their chains of denial and self-loathing. He dug his nails into the palms of his hands hard, blood trickling from them.

"I am not some... some golden child with rose-coloured glasses and hopeful dreams. I've seen the world. The real world. I lived in it. This..." He gestured around them as well as he could with Riddle standing so close, "this is a fantasy. All their talk of equality and understanding and tolerance. They only tolerate people like them. And...and if you're different...if you're truly special...they mock you. They fear you. They try to manipulate you..."

He closed his eyes, took a breath, opened them and raised his vial with the remaining potion in it. "Freedom."

Harry handed it over.

Riddle took it with his right hand and stared. "You would release me?"

"I've seen reality. I'm doing my best to change it to suit my needs. I need a new ending, the previous one was less than satisfactory. And, in any way, I've seen enough to know what I'm doing."

"What could you have seen? You're only a child."

He smiled bitterly. "Am I?"

Sharp eyes focused on him.

"Harry?"

Said boy tilted his head, eyes hardening. ""Why should we have to stand in the corner, suffering in silence while everyone else walks around with painted smiles on their faces, wearing mass-produced rose-coloured glasses like everything is right in the world? Like everything is okay? Fuck that. Misery is a selfish bitch and so am I."

Tom's lips twitched, unknown to Harry, he'd been ranting in Parseltongue. He ran his free hand through Harry's inky locks and pulled him into a strange embrace. A hug, Harry supposed. Though he hadn't had enough in his life to really be certain.

Tom whispered quietly, "I will show you the darkness they fear so and then I shall use it to free you from your cage of synthetic light..."

He was pushed back gently, just enough to come face to face with Riddle.

"Do you know who I am? Who I will become?"

Harry stared back, a wicked smile playing on his lips.

"Yes."

His back hit the wall and cold lips crashed on to his. Green eyes widened then closed. Fingers pulled his hair in a vice like grip and a tongue coated with the rest of the potion flicked into his mouth. The world blurred around them, it spun and reformed into a shadowed room with a cauldron in one corner and two dark-haired orphaned boys standing together, in a newly made, fragile, alliance, within a circle painted in salt and ashes.


	3. Pop-culture and Purebloods

**AN:** Dream number three coming right at ya.

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**Ironic Naming Skills**

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"What are you doing?"

Harry glanced up from the paperwork he and Tom had been huddled over for the last hour.

"Debating last names. If Tom and I are going to enter into the tournament we're gonna be clever about it."

A delicate brow raised. "Oh? And what do you have planned?"

"I am going to fashion myself a new identity and secure help from Durmstrang to ensure my status for the duration of the tournament as an additional member of their school."

"And I suppose you have a contact that can provide you with these services?"

"Nope, but I have friends that do." He winked, much to the blonde's displeasure.

"Why I am friends with you when all you do is use me I shall never know."

Tom rolled his eyes. "Don't pout Malfoy, you'll get wrinkles."

"Funny." Draco sniffed and crossed his fingers, though he didn't move away from them.

"Back to my original topic- which last name...or maybe a combination?" Harry asked aloud, musing.

Draco moved closer, nonchalantly gazing over the paper as if he wasn't curious. Harry new him better though. He could see it flicker across his face. During their shared detention in their first year Harry and Draco managed to mend their sorry first attempt of friendship, which was, honestly, disastrous. Since then they remained friends, although Tom always referred to him as one of Harry's 'minions'.

"Which names are you choosing from?"

Tom answered this one. "Krueger, Myers, Lector and Voorhees. I'm thinking a combo like Kryers or Vecter. There's so much potential here it's exciting."

"Why those names? They aren't pureblood are they?"

Harry rewarded him with a very Slytherin smirk then glanced at Tom.

They spoke in unison. "You either get it or you don't."

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**AN:** _There ya go. More coming soon. Let me know if you like it, love it or even loathe it entirely. _

_As long as you get something out of it I'm happy regardless. I'm a boss like that._

_-Pseudonymous_


	4. Tom was Bored

**AN:** Here is another dream for you. Tom makes another appearance...hmmm I am sensing a reoccurring theme here...

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**Why Can't we be ****Friends**

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Harry stared at the boy in front of him. If anyone had told him yesterday that today he would be sitting, crossed legged, in the chamber of secrets, bantering with mini-lord-Voldemort he'd have directed them to Madam Pomfrey immediately. Yet, here he was, getting to know the teenage version of the man who tried to kill him.

"It's frightening really." He murmured finally.

Tom stopped his ranting about the ministry to stare at him.

"What is?"

Harry pointed at his head. "How many people you've got in there."

"It's maddening." Tom deadpanned.

He repressed a smirk. "I'm quite sure it is."

Tom watched him for a moment, considering something or other in his head no doubt far too complex for Harry to follow.

"Why aren't you and I...associates?"

Harry nearly laughed at Tom's blatant avoidance of the term 'friends.'

"You tried to kill me."

"That isn't so bad. All this pent of anger isn't good for the soul. You need to learn to let things go Harry."

"Twice."

"If it makes you feel any better I obviously wasn't trying that hard. Well, i suppose I had intended to when you first approached me, but in my defense I knew you only as the boy who destroyed my future self and I was understandably upset. The second time I'd run out of things to say and I had nothing better to do."

"What."

"Bored. I was bored."

"...I hate you."

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**AN:** _Hope you guys like them thus far. Posting more soon._

_-Pseudonymous_


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